Setting

Mr P Lamb Trimley St Martin Primary School Kirton Road Trimley St Martin Suffolk IP11 0QL

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Martin Primary School

Thank you for the help which you and your staff gave when I inspected your school on 17 May 2011, for the time you gave to our discussions and for the information which you provided before and during the inspection. Please pass on my thanks to the Chair of Governors and to those pupils and members of staff I spoke with.

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Martin Primary School

Since the school was last inspected the Young Engineers Club, which had earlier won a prestigious national competition, successfully represented the United Kingdom at an international event in the United States. This success has been built on with the introduction of a robotics club. Links with parents and carers have been strengthened through the introduction of an additional pupil progress report and opportunities for parents and carers to join their children during reading and writing afternoons. Staffing has stabilised and there have been recent changes to the deployment of staff so that, for example, Year 6 is now taught all of their English lessons by the same teacher.

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Martin Primary School

As a result of the inspection on 17 March 2010, the school was asked to address the most important areas for improvement which are set out in the annex to this letter.

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Martin Primary School

Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time the school has made satisfactory progress in making improvements and satisfactory progress in demonstrating a better capacity for sustained improvement.

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Martin Primary School

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage settle quickly at the start of the day, listen carefully to their teachers and make good progress. Good teaching of early reading skills and letters and sounds provide a solid foundation for future learning. At the end of Year 2 attainment rose sharply last year and this higher attainment looks set to be maintained. Attainment at the end of Year 6 fell and was lowest in English. Serco Inspections Cedar House 21 William Street Edgbaston Birmingham B15 1LH Ofsted T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Serco Direct T 0121 683 3888 September 2010 Page 2 The quality of teaching and learning across the school is improving so that all is at least satisfactory and an increasing proportion is good. As a result, attainment in Years 3 to 6 is rising and the progress pupils make is beginning to accelerate. In Year 6 most pupils are on track to achieve their challenging targets in writing and

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Martin Primary School

standards in English are broadly average. For this group of pupils there have been impressive recent gains in learning so that lost time is being rapidly made up.

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Martin Primary School

Pupils are enthusiastic learners; they are able to work with sustained concentration and obvious enjoyment. A greater focus on extended writing is providing more opportunities for pupils to write at length. This is particularly evident in Year 6, where pupils are able to produce high quality writing with good grammar and punctuation and adventurous vocabulary. In a good English lesson pupils made good progress because expectations were high and pupils were clear about what they needed to do. They settled to their work exceptionally quickly, listened carefully and worked together well. Most classrooms use displays well to celebrate success and exemplify high standards. This is particularly evident in the use of ‘literacy walls’ and ‘working walls’, which help secure pupils’ grasp of essential writing skills. However, not all displays are of the same high quality. Relationships are strong, behaviour is

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Martin Primary School

good and pupils have positive attitudes to school. They collaborate well and enjoy opportunities to discuss their work and consolidate learning.

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Martin Primary School

The use of improvement targets for pupils has increased significantly. Nonetheless, while most pupils know what their targets are, not all are clear about how to achieve them. Much of the marking seen is of a high standard. It refers to pupils’ progress against both National Curriculum levels and the learning objective for individual lessons. In Year 6 pupils regularly assess one another’s work, making mature comments about what has gone well and what could be improved. Teachers’ planning for lessons is detailed and increasingly well differentiated so that they are planning more carefully to meet the needs of individual pupils, including the more able. Pupil progress meetings, where the learning needs of individual pupils are discussed and underachievement identified, are helping ensure that appropriate support is put in place. The school now carefully records and analyses data on the progress of individual pupils. This information is used to inform staff at pupil

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Martin Primary School

progress meetings and help them agree targets. The school is less effective in tracking the progress of groups of pupils.

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Martin Primary School

The headteacher has an accurate picture of the quality of teaching and learning across the school and knows what needs to be done to improve it. Governors know the school well and now monitor teaching and learning more frequently. The school has written a post-Ofsted improvement plan that is closely linked to improving those areas identified as priorities in the school’s last inspection. However, not all success criteria link closely enough to improvement targets, and where improvements in provision are identified their expected impact on attainment is unclear. September 2010 Page 3 Safeguarding arrangements comply fully with statutory requirements. The single central register is clear and staff training is up-to-date.

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Martin Primary School

The School Improvement Partner and local authority advisors have provided effective support for improving teaching and learning in literacy and benchmarking the school’s progress.

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Martin Primary School

I hope that you have found the inspection helpful in promoting improvement in your school. This letter will be posted on the Ofsted website.

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Martin Primary School

Robert Lovett Her Majesty’s Inspector September 2010 Page 4

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The areas for improvement identified during the inspection which took

 Raise the quality of teaching by improving evaluation procedures to ensure that teachers have high expectations of all pupils and match activities to their different learning needs.

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The areas for improvement identified during the inspection which took

 Raise the attainment, particularly of more able pupils, by using assessment information more robustly to set challenging, yet realistic improvement targets and rigorously check pupils’ progress to ensure they meet them.

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The areas for improvement identified during the inspection which took

 Improve pupils’ writing skills by embedding good practice in the use of assessment and improvement targets to help pupils understand how to improve their written work.

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The areas for improvement identified during the inspection which took

 Develop curriculum themes to provide more opportunities for pupils to produce longer, more detailed pieces of writing.

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